Constantine returns – Francis Lawrence and Keanu Reeves’ 2005 DC adaptation Constantine—now streaming on HBO Max—is being rewatched for its ’90s-gothic, demon-and-hell spectacle. Despite a 46% Rotten Tomatoes score at the time, fans on Letterboxd rate it 4 stars or above. With Cons
By the time Constantine hits its hellish centerpiece. it feels less like a superhero movie than a dare—bold. weird. and drenched in visual bravado. Released February 18. 2005. and running 121 minutes. Francis Lawrence’s 2005 DC adaptation has found a second life on HBO Max. with devotees returning for the exact brand of demonic noir that made it memorable in the first place.
What’s striking now is how different the audience’s love looks from the reception at launch. Critics dinged the film for its plotting and heavy reliance on visual effects, and it earned a 46% Rotten Tomatoes rating. On Letterboxd, though, the reaction is far warmer: 40% of viewers gave it four stars or above. That gap—between what landed with critics and what stuck with genre fans—has helped Constantine feel newly unavoidable.
Lawrence, who used Constantine as a calling card for major Hollywood projects, never really stepped away from that DC lane. After the film. his credits ranged from The Hunger Games to Stephen King’s The Long Walk. but John Constantine remained the standout for pure visual spectacle: demons and angels walking the Earth in stylized. Se7en-esque greens. yellows. and browns; angles that seem to tilt on purpose; and a look that embraces ’90s comic book-goth flair without blinking at its own goofiness.
The movie’s world-building is where it earns its devotion. It begins with a stylistic cross between an Indiana Jones movie and The Exorcist, then slides into demonic film noir before carving out its own identity as a hyper-stylized superhero saga that keeps begging for more.
Even the details are the kind that replay well. Demons appear as winged abominations that burst into embers when hit with holy light. In the otherworldly role of Gabriel, Tilda Swinton brings full-body intensity. There’s also a priest besieged by demonic forces until he drinks himself to death. then cradled by an enraged and grieving celestial liquor store owner.
The film doesn’t slow down for mood—it keeps escalating. Constantine features a demonic nightclub reminiscent of the one in Blade. where patrons literally cannibalize victims on tables and turn white wine into blood. And then the descent: hell is envisioned as Los Angeles frozen mid-atomic blast. with thousands of sinners and demons writhing just beneath the blown-out surface.
For many viewers, that’s only half the story. Actor Peter Stormare’s single. five-minute scene as Satan is the other half—barefoot. dripping tar. dressed in a crisp. white suit. His Satan arrives with unsettling physical performance: tics. inhuman gulping. licking objects. and twitching with the sheer ecstasy of being evil as he tries to take Constantine’s soul.
Still, the visuals are paired with the kind of on-screen energy that makes Reeves hard to replace. Keanu Reeves was already an icon upon the film’s 2005 release from The Matrix trilogy. but he hadn’t yet stepped into the iconic suit-and-pistols swagger that would later define John Wick. In Constantine. he brings a similar punchy attitude—constantly firing off angry “Yeahs” to demons and angels alike. lighting up at every opportunity. and eventually flipping off the devil.
Reeves also carries the quieter pain in scenes where oily black tumors are pulled from his chest and where he slices his own wrists in a bid to save a single doomed woman’s life. Watching Constantine now—especially with the hindsight of the John Wick films—has made the case for sequels feel even more obvious. Reeves and Lawrence have been on the same page with sequel ideas for years. and one version of that plan includes the idea of going bigger and leaning into an R-rating.
All of it helps explain why Constantine is landing differently today than it did back then. The runtime still clocks in at 121 minutes. the directing name still sits with Francis Lawrence. and the credits still include Frank A. Cappello as writer. But the movie’s afterlife—audience ratings on Letterboxd. renewed chatter. and streaming access on HBO Max—makes its strengths harder to ignore.
Because the truth is simple: Constantine remains a visual masterpiece and one of the coolest superhero movies ever made. built with the kind of imagination that feels rarer than it should. For anyone who missed out on its demonic charms for the past 21 years. the question isn’t whether it still works—it’s whether it’s the sequel momentum that keeps it burning.
Constantine HBO Max Keanu Reeves Francis Lawrence Constantine 2 John Constantine demonic film noir Tilda Swinton Peter Stormare DC Comics